


hollywood (live in a fiction, baby)

by undeliveredtruth



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Sweethearts, Feels, Introspective Hongjoong, M/M, Songfic, They’re Very Much in Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:53:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25858483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeliveredtruth/pseuds/undeliveredtruth
Summary: Hongjoong thought he fell in love too late.Seonghwa proves him right... and then wrong.
Relationships: Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 23
Kudos: 88





	hollywood (live in a fiction, baby)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myturntocry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myturntocry/gifts).



> This was inspired by Sai's amazing edit, [check it out here](https://twitter.com/_gyeonggidos/status/1293209646023417856?s=20), which she somehow managed to make angsty despite the song... so here we are. I haven’t cried writing a fic since... well, jicheol, really, but I have now... Thank you for being my (angst) co-enabler, and screaming with me about everything, and writing so many fics that will never see the light of day in messages. <3 
> 
> The song in this is Hollywood by The Black Stripes!

_We are going to Hollywood and never coming back_

_Maybe we’ll turn gold_

_"I’ll take you anywhere you want. We can go to the US, we can see New York. I’ll take you to Hollywood.”_

Hongjoong doesn’t actually remember how Seonghwa confessed, but he remembers that promise from the same night. Word by words. Sand uncomfortably pressing under his blue shorts, Seonghwa’s hand pressed over his on the beach. Hongjoong couldn’t even hold his hand he had been so terrified, frozen and shaken by the tremble in Seonghwa’s voice and the matching one it rose in his.

Seonghwa had blown his monthly allowance on a nice meal—a pizza and tiramisu shared between the two of them at the only Italian restaurant in their town. Because Seonghwa had loved that place because it was on the seafront, and apparently had loved Hongjoong just as much to try to make it special.

They were fourteen; Hongjoong didn’t see much of the point of that whole meal, really, didn’t understand why his childhood best friend had suddenly eaten his words, why he, the mostly clean eater, had dropped pizza sauce on his crisp black pants. Why he stopped speaking when a song—which would later become _theirs_ —played softly out of the speakers, didn’t know why Seonghwa seemed to _feel it._ Why he trembled when taking out the cash from his pocket, why he flinched when Hongjoong punched him (lightly) in the arm after.

He hadn’t seen much of it even when, in the sunset, Seonghwa asked him for a walk on the beach like it _meant_ something—like they hadn’t been there earlier that exact day with everyone else, splashing water at each other and playing volleyball at the net five hundred meters behind them.

He had understood only when Seonghwa stopped, and said those words Hongjoong doesn’t exactly remember.

He blames himself for that every day without fail. For forgetting those exact words, for forgetting everything but the look in Seonghwa’s eyes when he said them. Everything but that warm shade of brown looking into Hongjoong’s, and the furrow of his eyebrows, and then sheer _love_ Hongjoong didn’t recognize then.

But knows now. Because now, just now, he finally knows what to look for.

And knows enough to see that it’s missing.

_The moment you let go of my hand, I’ll probably melt away_

Hongjoong hadn’t known much of what love was. His father loved him, of course, he had done _everything_ for him, but his mother had never been around for Hongjoong to really understand what _that_ love was. Those butterflies in his chest, the stutter, the nights crying in the pillow and the days laughing with joy both.

He _knew_ it, of course—from all the songs he used to listen to, and the books he used to read, and everything he talked about with others. It was hard to really describe it, understand it, like _really_ understand it, clearly even harder. Impossible. Hongjoong didn't try to, really—would have considered himself lucky to have someone next to him he could talk to, and share his food with, and hang out.

(And kiss, maybe, but that was something for the evenings, and mouths buried in pillows so he didn’t make noise.)

And well, he had that. He had Seonghwa. And Yunho, and San, and Mingi, and Yeosang. And even Wooyoung, even for how popular he was. When he transferred to their school, Jongho as well.

So he didn’t really _need_ it, per se. Sure, he would’ve appreciated it, but not enough to feel that yearning that books sometimes described, that blind _need_ for someone. He had his fair of crushes, sure, but… they were pretty, and nice. And that was it for Hongjoong, enough to say he liked them, probably? 

And well… that didn’t really change out of the blue for him when Hongjoong and Seonghwa became… HongjoongandSeonghwa. Hongjoong really felt the same way as he did before; he still enjoyed the same things, and saw Seonghwa much of the same way.

Looking at Seonghwa still felt like looking at an angel, someone unapproachable, but incredibly kind and entirely too good for the world. He thought having Seonghwa be his, and hearing the hushed whispers to Hongjoong on Seonghwa’s bed, that Seonghwa wanted to melt every time Hongjoong let go of his hand would feel… different. That he’d feel proud of having someone like Seonghwa next to him, with him, that he’d want to show him off and scream it to the world.

He didn’t.

_You live inside of a movie, and I watch you in there_

_Please lower the lights_

Seonghwa liked to tell Hongjoong that his life was like a movie. His father’s path to getting custody of him, escaping Seoul, getting away from his mother’s rich family and all the ways they wanted to claim him—not a happy movie, but a movie nonetheless. Their life, Hongjoong’s dreams, his strength, his power—Seonghwa always talked about those qualities like Hongjoong was the protagonist of his own coming-of-age indie movie.

Hongjoong didn’t see them in himself, but well, you don’t see those kinds of things in yourself, really. How would you?

Whenever he did, whenever Seonghwa would tell him those things with shy words and shyer hands holding on to the bottom of his own sweater or fiddling with the bracelet Hongjoong had bought him on their school trip, Hongjoong couldn’t really say them back.

Because they weren’t the same, and Seonghwa had always been better at saying than Hongjoong ever was at feeling.

So how could have Hongjoong told Seonghwa that every time Seonghwa smiled, Hongjoong felt a little gremlin make his way up his throat and build a home there, so that Hongjoong let out a hard breath and didn’t know why all of a sudden he had choked on air? How could have Hongjoong told Seonghwa that whenever he sat at his dinner table with his family and felt the _love_ Seonghwa was surrounded with permeating through the walls and the chopsticks in his hand and the steaming food on his plate, he looked at Seonghwa and said to himself _yes, it makes sense._ That he went home to his dad so many times and told him everything that he had done with Seonghwa that day, where they went, how they played, and his father sat there with a smile on his face that Hongjoong now realizes was him knowing more than Hongjoong ever did.

He couldn’t, because he _didn’t._ Know, that is, what it all meant.

Seonghwa had known, apparently.

_Red hair is waving at me saying “Don’t be afraid, hurry up and jump in”_

_Who cares if I burn, all will turn to ash anyway_

Once, when they were seventeen, Hongjoong had taken Seonghwa to the park. It was right before Seonghwa had bought a leather jacket and turned all badass; well, actually, the week before, which is kind of funny, now that Hongjoong thinks about it.

Seventeen-year-old Hongjoong was signed up for a new hagwon by his father, who told him he should probably think about focusing on his studies at this point in life maybe, Hongjoong, come on. Hongjoong immediately went and dyed his hair red. A bright-ass red, with semi-permanent hair dye that stained his clothes and his backpack and everything that came in a one-meter radius of him for a whole six weeks.

In the midst of summer, the sun burned on Hongjoong’s skin. Like actually _burned,_ that uncomfortable feeling when there is no sign of a breeze.

Hongjoong saw the water sticks, as they all affectionately dubbed the fountain in the middle of the park, and immediately pulled Seonghwa into them. Pulled his hand, heard Seonghwa’s high-pitched laughter into his ears as Hongjoong held his hand in his and didn’t even care that he was hit by the droplets of water, as long as Seonghwa was too.

He just wanted to _live._ He wanted to feel alive, with that damn strawberry red in his hair, red-stained water dripping down his shoulder and onto Seonghwa’s hands as Seonghwa allowed himself to be tugged, and never stopped laughing.

It was _that._ The cheery laughter, the booming sound of Mingi’s voice as his friends found them, and Seonghwa laying a sneaky kiss onto his cheek before he pulled away—Hongjoong had gotten his revenge by spraying water at Seonghwa, waving his hand so the streams falling from the fountain hit him and ruined that pretty make-up and composed look of his. To let him _laugh_ as he tried to hit Hongjoong back and he almost toppled, quickly pulled back by Seonghwa’s hand.

Let him laugh as much as he _deserved_ to, because to Hongjoong, Seonghwa deserved nothing but to feel happy in every moment of his life. He just wanted to make Seonghwa laugh—all the time, any time.

But also because Hongjoong was addicted to the way Seonghwa’s laugh bloomed that feeling in his chest he had no name for, which tasted warm on his tongue and smelled like Seonghwa’s cologne and warm summer days and looked like… well, like Seonghwa looking at him with a lopsided smile, turning back and tugging on Hongjoong’s thighs and giving him a piggyback ride to force him under the water. Hongjoong opened his mouth and let the probably dirty water cool down his thirst, soothe the dryness of his mouth from Seonghwa’s touch on his thighs.

_You were my dream and now it all feels so real_

_You’re real, yeah_

“When did you start liking me?”

“Mmm,” Seonghwa hummed, and laughed, and buried the _it’s stupid_ in his hand. Hongjoong had looked at him, sideways on Seonghwa’s bed, facing each other, knowing Seonghwa couldn’t see him, and felt his whole world twist upside down for the briefest second.

“No. Tell me. It’s not stupid.” Hongjoong had said, serious and honest, had pulled his hand down, and took Seonghwa’s watery eyes looking into his like a punch to his chest. Swift, painful, and leaving him breathless.

“It’s just… in first grade, middle school, you sat down to me on the bus. And you gave me the headphone from your iPod, and started talking about this song that you liked a lot, and it’s just… it hit me, I guess. Then.”

“That long? You held it to yourself for that long?” Hongjoong gasps. 

Three years or so is maybe… that seems to be quite a long time.

“It’s like… I just had these feelings, and I never thought it could be real. It never seemed real, that it would be able to happen.”

“Ah,” Hongjoong hummed, suddenly sort of uncertain. Everything always seems painfully, achingly real to him.

“When did you start liking me?” Seonghwa asks, blinking a curious gaze, eyes shyly looking at Hongjoong up from under his lashes.

Hongjoong looked at him and said the truth. “I don’t know.”

Seonghwa couldn't hide the flash of _hurt._

Hongjoong couldn’t tell him that he _always_ liked him, because again, he didn’t _know_. He had liked him so long he didn’t know what liking meant, didn’t know that what he had been living with his entire life was anything significant.

If he could have, he would have held Seonghwa’s hands in his, and told him that Seonghwa had always been the biggest reason that he could wake up in the morning with a smile on his face sometimes. That he couldn’t, couldn’t for the life of him explain just _how much_ , just _how big_ Seonghwa is to him, encompassing of the whole city and country and planet and universe, that it was so deep into Hongjoong he didn’t know life without the lens of Seonghwa— _when do I tell Seonghwa about this, that place I remember because of Seonghwa, this would look good on Seonghwa, bet Seonghwa would like this._ Seonghwa was everything, big as the world and yet little enough to live in everything Hongjoong did.

It just so happened that everything was about Seonghwa until Seonghwa was in front of him—and it all disappeared in favor of the warm eyes looking into his. Hongjoong could easily tell to everyone how much Seonghwa meant to him in these little ways, enough to get his fair share of teasing… but not to Seonghwa. Not to his face.

He just _couldn’t._

And so he hurt him, over and over again.

Way too many times, apparently.

_When I breathe onto your slender neck, which lacks a single hair_

_My body trembles, that’s how much I like you_

Seonghwa didn’t care that Hongjoong’s newly dyed red hair could stain his pristine white shirt. That time it couldn’t, actually, because nineteen-year-old Hongjoong knew to use permanent hair dye and wash it out of his hair until the water ran clean; but Seonghwa didn’t know, and he had wrapped his arms around Hongjoong from the back, and Hongjoong felt them tremble, felt his shaky breath on his nape as they played a game—some sort of human, uncomplicated _yutnori_ where they had to pair up, where Seonghwa pulled strings with Wooyoung to be in the same team with Hongjoong, and Hongjoong noticed because of course he watches Seonghwa all the time.

Hongjoong lifted his hands to wrap around his, rest on where Seonghwa held him tight, even as they lost balance and moved from left to right, to keep Seonghwa next to him. Hugging him tight.

Maybe he couldn’t pull strings to make sure Seonghwa was always next to him. But he saved the video anyway when San sends it to him with a _;)_ emoji, and watches how comfortable Seonghwa looks resting on him—the half smile, the ways his eyes look to someone else and then to Hongjoong and then to someone else again. Checking in just for a second, his hands tightening onto Hongjoong, like Hongjoong is his rest stop—somewhere to come relax and recharge. A little oasis in the middle of a crazy world.

He cried when he thought of it like that; honest, real tears—that Seonghwa found in him his own home, just like Hongjoong took a look at him when they met and build a foundation with Seonghwa at the center of everything. His own home, his castle, his _treasure._

Hongjoong cried, and got _scared—_ all of a sudden, realizing just how much they meant to each other.

But now, that fear didn’t even matter in the slightest. He had never felt like this; he didn’t think it _possible_ to feel like this, but now he _did._ A painful, unrestrained, aching need to see Seonghwa, to hold him running through his veins, all throughout his body. _Love_ , so powerful and strong it obliterated _everything._

It felt real. Finally, _finally_ , it had all felt real, and reciprocated, and the same, and they were partners in crime holding hands in front of the whole world and Hongjoong cried in his pillow and texted Seonghwa _I love you_ with trembling hands, and felt _so, so free,_ video playing on his screen over and over again.

And didn’t get an answer until the next morning.

_We need to talk._

_There’s only the beginning_

_The end is distant_

_I don’t think it’s working out. I don’t think… it’s going to work out._

In his childhood bed, Hongjoong trembled as Seonghwa pressed into him over and over. Like an apology, the breaths pressed into the back of his neck were nothing but guilt in its purest, most unadulterated form, hand tightening around Hongjoong’s waist with every little sob Hongjoong couldn’t hold back. Tears wet the pillow Hongjoong hugged to his face, in which he buried his mouth in because he didn’t. want. to cry.

He didn’t want to be heard crying—he had been so pathetic as to ask in the first place, he should have enjoyed every second.

_One… one more night. Please… please, Seonghwa._

Seonghwa had looked at him with that pity and feeling still in his eyes, and kissed Hongjoong harder than he ever had before. They stumbled into Hongjoong’s bedroom, in full darkness, and Seonghwa pressed Hongjoong down on the bed with his entire weight. Tangled from head to toe, Seonghwa’s fingers barely had any room to stretch him open, deep and full, just like Hongjoong liked it.

Hongjoong _ached_ —he wasn’t sure when the last time he hadn’t was. When he didn’t hurt for Seonghwa’s touch, when he didn’t spend every waking moment hoping Seonghwa would just… reach out, and soothe him when Hongjoong wasn’t sure if he wanted to be hurt or held. Or both, maybe—especially when it was both, and Seonghwa held Hongjoong close, twisted his body in shapes he didn’t think possible, punched up pleasure from him and left bruises on his body both.

This time, Seonghwa didn’t even give him that much. This time cruel, unforgiving Seonghwa _really_ made it hurt. With slow thrusts inside him, not pulling out the slightest centimeter, grinding deeper and deeper inside Hongjoong until there was nothing left—no space, and nothing of Hongjoong’s to really call his own. Seonghwa’s hand in his hair, Seonghwa’s lips on the back of his neck, Seonghwa’s chest pressing into his back, Seonghwa filling him up, Seonghwa’s knees pressing to both sides of his thighs. Seonghwa, Seonghwa, Seonghwa, all Hongjoong has ever known and surely, surely… everything he’ll ever know.

Hongjoong wasn’t even sure when he came. A moment he hadn’t, and then he had succumbed to that kind of pleasure that burned everything in its path—sending shivers throughout his body, Seonghwa’s hand tangled with his on the side of the sheets and trying to soothe the way it _hurt_ with whispers in his ear and kisses on his neck. Except those hurt even more, and Hongjoong trembled. Was it fair? Was it fair for it to hurt _that much?_

The soft moan Seonghwa let out when he came deep inside Hongjoong, shuddering with overstimulation, had been deafening to Hongjoong’s ears. And Seonghwa more selfish than anyone to do this to Hongjoong, brand him for one last time like he knew Hongjoong would never be able to move on.

Even so, Hongjoong cried out at the feeling and pulled Seonghwa closer—to stay inside him for just a little bit longer, just… a little bit.

He should’ve known better than to prolong his agony. Because after all, now when the deed is done, and Seonghwa lets go—leaves—and Hongjoong is left staring after his closed door, rain pattering down the windows… Hongjoong thinks that it was too late anyway.

He loved him too late.

_Live in a fiction, baby_

It turns out he didn’t. He’s always loved Seonghwa—fiercely and intensely, with all the power he could muster, with everything in his heart, and his brain, and in his body. Ever since they were four, and a brown-haired boy next to his mom opened the door and bowed to him, took Hongjoong’s hand, and pulled him to orbit around him.

Hongjoong never failed to love him—even in all those moments when he thought he didn’t, when he thought Seonghwa had meant little, hadn’t been _enough_. He had been a great deal of too much, and Hongjoong was paralyzed by it all to know just how intensely Seonghwa lived in him.

Seonghwa’s always been _it_ for him. He just couldn’t see that.

And well, now… it seems like he’s not it for Seonghwa anymore.

Hongjoong looks out of his window; it’s been raining for hours, days maybe. He hasn’t texted Seonghwa for days, had received no text for him.

He dreads to think he’s going to have to go back soon—that summer break is over in a few weeks, and Hongjoong will probably have to move dorms, extract his belongings from Seonghwa’s and figure out how to build a life separate from his when it’s been five years.

Well, fifteen more like, since Seonghwa’s been the rhyme and reason, the grounding force, the little _something_ to everything Hongjoong has ever done. Hongjoong would’ve never thought his coming-of-age would have a sad ending, but here he is, crying his eyes out after a feeling he never thought he’d experience—one so foreign, so _outside_ to Hongjoong.

But well, life moves on. Maybe someday Hongjoong will too, if Seonghwa lets him.

_Hollywood_

He doesn’t.

3 AM, the doorbell to their house rings. His father’s working nights again while Hongjoong is at college, and Hongjoong feels the slightest inkling of fear through his veins. Who could it be?

No texts on his phone; Hongjoong grabs their umbrella on the way to his front door, the heavy handle one, with which he’s sure he can knock someone out if it comes to blows. Carefully, he approaches the door, mindful to not make any noise, and peeks through the peephole.

His umbrella clatters to the ground. In the heavy rain, Seonghwa looks to be shivering; Hongjoong unlatches and unlocks the door in one second.

Looks. And looks again, Seonghwa’s eyes fixed on his from the wet fringe falling into them…

and throws himself out there, wrapping arms around a drenched Seonghwa, letting the water seep through his clothes. Seonghwa’s wet face buries itself in his hair, on his cheek, in his neck, hugging him so tight Hongjoong’s bones feel like they will break.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean any of it, I’m…”

“Shut up. Just shut up.”

Inside the house, Seonghwa drips water to his carpet—his dad will _kill him._ Hongjoong’s hand tight in his, Seonghwa uses his other to take out two pieces of paper from his pocket. They’re wet beyond repair, almost falling apart in his hands—but he hands them to Hongjoong anyway.

“What’s this?”

“Plane tickets. I’ll print them again. If you…”

When Hongjoong opens the pieces of paper, the ink is bled out and falling apart, but enough for him to see the _ICN - > LAX. _Dated tomorrow.

“If you want to go with me?”

Hongjoong looks up and down at the tickets, and Seonghwa’s face, and the drenched pieces of paper falling apart in his hands, and into Seonghwa’s eyes again. “I hate you _so fucking much.”_

“I love you too,” Seonghwa opens up easily under Hongjoong’s lips, and drenches Hongjoong from head to toe again.

And maybe the carpet is ruined, and the floor is ruined, and Hongjoong’s clothes are ruined, but Hongjoong kisses Seonghwa once again, and finally feels _alive_ with the weight of everything he now knows he’s ever wanted. Even if Seonghwa might not love him the same way anymore—Hongjoong can wait the same way Seonghwa has, and love him until he does.


End file.
